Idly wondering about the tangents from a point to a circle I constructed the figure below. The point A is on a circle and can be moved round the circle. The chord CD then moves around. The interesting thing is to see the envelope of this chord as the point A is moved. ..

Circles and hyperbolas galore, but when the big circle passes through the centre of the smaller circle the envelope is the surprise parabola. The question is “How do I find the equation of such a parabola? Sensible choice of origin and axes is the first thing. the y-axis is best as the line joining the centres of the two circles. Then you need an equation for the line CD, with a suitable parameter. Then a little bit of calculus………..Nice one for calculus students